


we can meet in the middle

by Rigil_Kentauris



Category: Deus Ex 1
Genre: Angst, Anna POV, Blood Loss, Gen, Knife Violence, Multi, POV Third Person, UNATCO level missing scene, anna makes things difficult to tag, emotional denial, emotional detachment, interpersonal tragedy, lmao thats their ship name anyway, technically the MCD is implied but i mean. its pretty solidly implied so.
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-26
Updated: 2019-12-26
Packaged: 2021-02-26 06:41:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 641
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21965116
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rigil_Kentauris/pseuds/Rigil_Kentauris
Summary: UNATCO is falling apart, and so are they.
Relationships: Anna Navarre & Gunther Hermann & Paul Denton, Anna Navarre/Gunther Hermann/Paul Denton (Implied/Referenced)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 3





	we can meet in the middle

**Author's Note:**

> *long personal note about how i havent written in a while*
> 
> spotify gave me this song one day while i was lookiing for a completely different song with the same name anyway it came on while i was writing so. [title.](https://open.spotify.com/track/26WlFnTlUSM5R0xg5p6epW) boom. easy mcfreakin peasy. youve not got to listen to it im just doing some due diligence on sourcing
> 
> ~~also i dont remember if gunther was in unatco during the Breaking Out part and i dont actually feel like looking it up~~

The blade pierces so deep through his torso that Anna can see the wet point poking out through the back of his coat. Paul chokes on a gasp, but Gunther’s grasp doesn’t waver. One hand around the hilt of the dagger in Paul’s midsection, the other wrapped around him, holding him. Securing him.

Pulling him closer.

The sirens and alarms are going off all over UNATCO Bedloe, and yet. She doesn’t move.

Paul’s breaths come up bloody, and he stares up at Gunther with leftover intensity, but he doesn’t say anything. Only silence, as the sirens go off.

“ _Why,”_ Gunther finally manages to ask. Anna knows her partner well enough to know what he’s feeling. And that has to be enough, because, well, she doesn’t feel much of anything at all right now.

“Hahhhh…” Paul says. She doesn’t know if it’s laughter or pain. She doesn’t care. “I would… I would…”

Someone pings her infolink. The secondary unit is fleeing. She should go after him. Stop him. End him. She dials her vision in to watch the nearly imperceptible shaking in her partner’s arms, instead.

Paul struggles to enclose his hands around the one Gunther is using to hold the knife.

His eyes flash darkly, and for a second, it’s like she recognizes him again.

“I would do it all again,” he spits, and twists enough to slam and elbow into Gunther’s side. Gunther drops Paul, and even though he lands on the ground just wrong enough for the knife to dig in harder, he succeeds in rolling and coming to a firing stance on his knees. He's snatched his discarded pistol off the ground, and aims it directly at Gunther’s head.

“I’m so sorry,” he says, the split second before Anna decloaks, and looses a throwing knife at him.

This time, it _is_ laughter.

The gun clatters to the ground. Her aim is precise. She’s severed the nerves in his arm, and nanites or not, it is no longer under his control.

He turns to look at her, with failing balance. “Anna,” he says, with finality. Perhaps he’s laughed hard enough to cry, and that’s what the tears in the corner of his eyes are. Gunther, standing across the medbay, probably would have been teary too, if he’d had the ability anymore. She won’t bother wondering what would have been, though.

She won’t.

Not even if it’s to find a way to say all the things she’d wanted to, once.

Wanted to, _now._

None of it matters.

So if this is to be their last…

“I understand,” she tells him. “He’s your brother.”

He smiles softly, and for a second, it’s like she recognizes him again.

“No, you…you don’t,” he says. “It was _right._ ”

She can understand what her partner must be feeling right now. Heartbreak. Misery. Anger, confusion, _loss._

It has to be enough.

It’s enough. “ _Enough.”_ She activates all her augs and is simply _there,_ in front of him. His eyes widen and she yanks the blade out, as quickly as she can. Paul collapses just as fast. Gunther’s across the room in a heartbeat, catching Paul before he can fall, putting pressure on the wound, working to save him even though he _knows_ Paul has to die, knows it, wanted it, _requested_ it.

“I do not forgive you,” he’s saying, over and over again as Paul’s life signs flag and then start to fail on her HUD. “I cannot forgive you.”

And they are both… they are both… weak, and sad, and intolerable and, and…

And she doesn’t care. So they’ll cling and cry. She has important things to do. Around them, the sirens still sound. And her infolink still pings incessantly. While her partners sit in a pool of cold blood, she has places to be.

Important people to protect.

And another Denton to kill.

**Author's Note:**

> *and a short closing note about how id rather die than give up the word And as a sentence starter*


End file.
